<p>Hello all! I'm currently making a pretty tough decision between attending Wesleyan and Brown as a transfer student. I'm coming from Cornell University, and I essentially want something close to the opposite of it; laid back, small, intellectual, undergraduate focused. I was an econ major at Cornell, and will major in Econ at Brown and will send out an application to the College of Social Studies this Monday; hopefully I will be admitted to that. I want to eventually go to grad school and receive a PhD in economics.</p>
<p>I know that there are so many similarities between the schools and I just wanted to know if any Wesleyan students could give their two cents on why Wesleyan might be a better fit for me. FYI, I've already attended Cornell, so I'm totally over the "Ivy" factor; I just want to know if Wesleyan can really give me an equal or better education that Brown.</p>
<p>Oh, that’s easy. You will get a much more rigorous education by enrolling in CSS than you would by thrashing around, cobbling together your own “Brown Experience” for the next three years. I think even my Brown friends would agree with me.</p>
<p>Please make sure you understand the admission process of CSS. It might be too late for transfer students to be accepted into the major, since they have already admitted a class of 30 freshmen about a month ago.</p>
<p>30freshmen=30risingsophomores</p>
<p>I believe the poster above is correct about being too late to apply for CSS for the fall. There were 61 applicants among freshmen this year, and 30 have been selected. As the selection process involves an interview with a faculty member and a CSS student, and as classes ended May 9, I think you are out of luck. You can always call them, but applications were due back in March for CSS. Students are admitted only as sophomores. </p>
<p>However, I have to put a good word in for the Wesleyan Dept. of Economics, which boasts a Nobel Prize winner and is a very rigorous and highly-regarded program. You can absolutely double major in economics and history, for example, and create a CSS-like academic experience for yourself. As you move into upper division courses, classes are small and it is very easy to get to know professors and classmates. Wesleyan is much smaller than Brown and has the kind of intimacy you will rarely find at a larger institution. And Wesleyan has one of the top track records in percent of graduates who complete Ph.D. programs (usually ranked second, I recall).</p>
<p>I’m well aware of the application process and have been in contact with the CSS office since March. They are letting me apply and will let me know within the next few weeks. I’ve met all the prerequisites for admission while at Cornell with decent grades, so hopefully I would be admitted. The only issue in my mind is if Wesleyan is really worth giving up Brown for if I am not admitted into the program.</p>
<p>^^I would put it slightly differently; I would ask myself whether going to Brown is worth giving up Wesleyan’s intimacy and coherency. Transfer students at Wesleyan are typically given what are, IMO, the best dorm selections for sophomores - Nicholson and Hewitt dorms; they are almost immediately integrated into the social fabric of the campus. Brown at its best is a larger version of Wesleyan which has its drawbacks; each is diverse, each is the least pre-professioal member of their “league”. Both boast a great deal of freedom (you may already have fulfilled Wesleyan’s distribution "“expectations” while at Cornell, for instance), but, Brown is known to be rather cliquey and you are never going to know more than a small sliver of the members of your class. </p>
<p>Beyond that, I would say, there is far less departmentalization at Wesleyan, meaning, it’s easier to find courses that relate to your interests even though they may fall outside your major (Film is a big example of this - almost every language taught at Wesleyan offers a film course). Wesmaps, the online course catalogue, will help you find those connections and to be perfectly frank, the connections are a function of Wesleyan’s small size. The Brown graduates I’ve met have complained that it is much easier to graduate with just a collection of courses that have no relationship to each other.</p>
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<p>Isn’t the nearly unencumbered liberality of course selection that is implicit in the feasibility of taking a slew of unfocused courses reason for those who willfully exploit that potentiality to not complain about what they did? An open curriculum doesn’t necessitate breadth at the expense of depth; by its nature, one can make of it what he or she wishes. It doesn’t take particularly much effort in analyzing the course offerings to find the coherency you’re looking for.</p>
<p>^^Assuming, you’re not lazy.</p>